


Della Famiglia e l'Italia

by Haywire



Category: While You Were Sleeping (1995)
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, Kid Fic, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 12:54:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8980609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haywire/pseuds/Haywire
Summary: Gia Callaghan, daughter of Lucy and Jack, sets out on her own while still firmly - and happily - anchored to her family's past.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [penintime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/penintime/gifts).



> A treat for penintime, this idea popped into my head and I had to get it out there. It doesn't match any prompts but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless. :)
> 
> I also apologize for any botched Italian in both the title and the fic itself; I relied on the assistance of Google Translate.

Gia Callaghan found herself sitting on her bed in front of her laptop in her dorm room on a Friday night. What was worse was the fact that she was on Facebook. What was even _worse_ was the fact that she was talking to her mother on Facebook.

She sighed and reached for her bowl of popcorn, waiting for her mother to respond while alt-tabbing out to watch YouTube videos. _Hardly an exciting night,_ she sighed to herself.

To be fair, it _was_ her first weekend there, in her first semester away from home at university. Her parents had packed their SUV and brought her up a few days ago, and she was only now starting to bring the room into some semblance of tidiness. Classes didn’t start until Monday, and there weren’t a lot of people moved in yet, so she didn’t really have that many options.

Her mother’s reply popped up in the chat window, an audible ping getting her attention.

_Have you finished registering for all of your classes yet?_

Gia rolled her eyes as she started typing back her reply, though there was a hint of a smile on her face. Her mother seemed more interested in her major than she was, which amused her to no end, not that she’d ever admit that.

_I do, they’re all confirmed. I can only do the first year of Italian this semester, along with the necessary English, Math, etc., but it’s all good to go. :)_

She had toyed with the idea of studying film, especially Italian cinema, but in the end she knew teaching was going to win out. Gia blamed slash credited that to her mother, who instilled her love for all things Italian into Gia at an early age. It kindled a similar interest in her, and it became a way to bond with her mother.

They had even been able to travel there together a few years ago. Her father, who’d been there several times with Lucy, stayed home to look after the family business. While they did well, Gia was old enough now to recognize they couldn’t afford to all go, but he knew how much the trip meant to them both so he made it work.

It had only been for two weeks but it had been the greatest two weeks of her life. Gia had friends who’d visited Italy before, all of them through some sort of tourist group, or just to the typical major tourist attractions; Florence, Venice, Milan, and the like. When she went with Lucy, however, she got to see all of that and much, much more.

Her mother took her to her favourite off the beaten path spots on the Amalfi coast. She spent a few days at Marina de Pisciotta in Salerno, where she’d had a brief encounter with a local boy and secured her very memorable first kiss on the stoop of a pastel-painted house. There was Gabicce Mare and its colour coded beach umbrellas and concession stands on the Adriatic coast, and Cefalù and its great Norman cathedral, where she spent many hours curled up and reading in the cool shade.

Another ping from her laptop snapped her out of her reverie, turning Gia’s attention back to the computer.

_That’s good honey, I’m so excited for you! You’re going to have such a great semester._

Before she could reply another message appeared below the last one:

_Oh, and has your father’s surprise arrived yet? He’s reading this over my shoulder and won’t stop until I ask you._

Gia could picture them now, sitting at the dining room table, her father playfully poking at her mother, his chin resting on her shoulder. Lucy would swat at him and tell him to go away, but she’d be smiling just the same, the same smile that Gia found tugging at her own lips. Her parents were such dorks but she loved them.

_Not yet, and I don’t think you can call it a surprise now that you’ve told me about it - hang on, there’s someone at the door._

She sent her message before hopping off the bed and heading to the door. There wasn’t a door viewer in her door but she knew that access to the dorm was restricted by campus security and whoever it was wouldn’t have been able to enter the dorm itself without their permission.

“Who is it?”

“UPS, we have a package for a Gia Callaghan?” came a voice from the other side.

She carefully opened the door, relaxing a little when she saw a lady wearing the familiar UPS uniform standing there.

“That’s me,” Gia said.

“Sign right here please,” the delivery woman said, handing a digital device over to her with a stylus for her signature. Gia did so, then handed the device back and waited to be handed the package.

“You’re, uh, gonna have to open the door wider than that to get it in there.” The woman gestured to her side, where a large box sat on a hand trolley.

“Oh, right, sorry. Didn’t see it there at first.” Gia opened the door and stepped back to allow the woman to wheel the package inside the room. “You can just leave it there, that’s fine, thanks.”

The woman pushed the package into the empty corner of the room where Gia had indicated, then slid the trolley out from underneath and left. Gia shut the door then turned to face the package.

“Guess this is Dad’s surprise, then,” she said aloud. She inspected the shipping label, which listed the sender as Jack Callaghan, Chicago, IL, confirming her guess.

Gia looked around and found a pair of scissors on a nearby table, then cut the plastic ties that wrapped around the large cardboard box. Once they were snipped off she was better able to unpack the box itself; years of helping her father packing and shipping furniture instilled a preternatural knack for this kind of work.

It didn’t take her long to realize what her father had sent her, and she made short work of the remaining cardboard once she knew. Within less than a minute she’d revealed its contents: a beautiful wooden rocking chair that Jack had crafted before Gia was born. He’d made it while Lucy was pregnant, in fact, and they’d both regaled her with stories of how Lucy would rock her in that chair until she’d drift off to sleep in her mother’s arms.

She had many fond memories of rocking back and forth in the chair as a young girl, reading countless books and taking many naps in its comfortable embrace. It was a marvelous piece of work, her father’s proudest creation after his daughter, according to Lucy, and to that day it still never squeaked or wobbled out of place.

The chair had always been Gia’s favourite, and her mother’s as well. So much so, in fact, that she’d sat in that very same chair and had her usual morning cup of coffee in it early on the morning she left home for university.

She scooped up her laptop off of the bed and slid into the rocking chair with it, curling her legs up underneath her. Her mother had sent another message while she was at the door.

_Was that the package Gia? Please say yes so I can finally tell your father to stop reading over my shoulder and go to bed._

Gia laughed and sniffed at the same time, brushing away a tear or two with the sleeve of her sweater before typing her response.

_It is, I’m sitting in it right now. Vi amo mamma e papà._

She smiled and continued chatting with her mother, grabbing a pillow off of her bed for her head and gently rocking back and forth.


End file.
